


Serendipity (or some crap)

by Hope



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-14
Updated: 2007-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Derry, with Viv borrowed from her 'namverse, which is a lot bigger than it looks.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Serendipity (or some crap)

**Author's Note:**

> For Derry, with Viv borrowed from her 'namverse, which is a lot bigger than it looks.

God, he's thought about it enough, more than he'll admit to himself, and that's saying something. Never thought it'd happen like this, though. Greasy spoon on the 101, heading back into San Francisco but far enough away that he'd had to stop to eat before he got there, pulling his aviator sunglasses down off his forehead to settle on his nose as he pushed on out through the door, and that was his first mistake. Or no, not his first. Not mistake, even. More like serendipity or some crap.

He's not really looking where he's going, just knowing the door's in front of him and bright afternoon sunlight shining through, and next thing he knows something -- some_one_ \- slams onto him. Or, slams into his legs. A kid, heading full pelt into the diner without paying much attention himself, apparently not even questioning how the door had seemingly magically opened ahead of him.

At any rate, the kid's landed ass-over-teakettle onto the dusty, gum-spotted porch of the place -- thank god there were no steps for him to crack his skull open on -- and Viv's just stepping forward to lean down and help the kid up when he hears a sharp, "_Dean._"

The kid scrambles up but Viv's having a slightly less easy time straightening himself, that _voice_, jesus, his heart's drumming out a tattoo and there's a wash of adrenaline through his limbs that leaves him abruptly light all through, like his body's about to literalise the _flight_ side of the _-or-fight_ scenario.

He can't see, the goddamn sun shining right into his eyes, and the kid steps back and kind of disappears into the haze and Viv can't move, won't move, still standing there in front of the door. Footsteps crunch across the dirt-and-gravel surface of the parking lot closer towards him, and "Hey. Sorry about my boy," half-apologetic, half-wary. "He gets a little excited."

Viv closes his mouth finally; licks his lips. Lifts his hand to shade his eyes and suddenly the man standing before him becomes solid in the hazy afternoon light.

"John fucking Winchester," Viv says.

John's bearded where he was clean-shaven, hair a little wilder and a little longer, solid set to his mouth and lines of his face a little craggier. He frowns, shuffling forward a little to peer into Viv's face. "Viv?" he says, with more than a little incredulity. "Martinelli?"

"You bet your fucking ass," Viv says, half-breathless laughter, and then John's in his arms and squeezing the goddamn life out of him, Viv giving as good as he gets and both of them pounding each other's backs like they're trying to jumpstart something vital.

John pulls back and they've shifted positions; out of the direct path of the door now and side-on to the setting sun. John looks like he can't believe his fucking eyes and Viv doesn't feel that much different. The kid from before is staring up at Viv distrustfully, hovering around John's hip. There's another kid too, small enough that Viv hadn't seen him before, one arm wrapped around John's thigh and one chubby hand clasped in the other boy's fist.

"You been breeding, Johnny?" Viv says, the old moniker sliding out effortlessly, even though the jolt it shoots through his chest at the expression that it flickers on John's features. "These fine young men can't be products of your loins, surely."

John grins briefly and ducks his head to hide it; and the familiarity of that is enough to choke Viv's breath at the base of his throat. "My boys," John says gruffly. One of his hands has come to rest cupping the back of the smallest kid's head. "This is Sammy," John says, hand briefly pushing through the kid's hair before he lifts the hand, clasping the other boy's shoulder and guiding him forward. "And Dean. Dean, this is Viv. He's… We served together."

Dean still looks mildly suspicious, but at John's urging holds out his hand and allows it to be shaken. Viv hazards a smile and Dean doesn't quite scowl in response, but the brief upward tug of his lip is nothing more than obligatory.

"Were you…" John says, half turning his head, rubbing at the back of his neck for a moment. "We were just… We've been on the road, thought we'd stop for--"

"Just had some supper," Viv says. "Was on my way, but… Not like there's any hurry."

"You wanna chow with us, then?"

Viv smiles broadly, and John's mouth turns up at the edges. "Sure, I could fit some more in."

The boys both insist on cramming in on the one side of the booth with their Dad, so that leaves Viv on the other side facing them. And he's not complaining, fuck no, as surreal as this situation is… Because he sure as hell hadn't imagined _this._ John alternating intent scrutiny of Viv with complete attention to his kids; cutting crusts off sandwiches, mopping milkshake off faces, giving into every single request that even Viv can tell are goddamn attention seeking at best most of the time ("Daddy, can you check there's enough salt on my fries?"). Apparently, John's boys are spoiled rotten.

Which makes sense, because John's wife is dead.

Viv's seen so much crap in his own lifetime that it seems ridiculous for him to feel grief for a woman he's never even met, let alone known the _existence_ of five minutes ago, but the look on Johnny's face… Hell yeah, he and Viv have seen all kinds of shit together, but John's not telling him nothing about this. He's a widower, there was a fire, he and his boys haven't found somewhere new to settle just yet. He's doing it solo; his announcement of this in as many words is accompanied by a narrow-eyed glare from Dean, and the kid looks so much like his father in that sudden sullen youthfulness that Viv can't help but beam at him.

When he looks up again, John's got a funny look on his face like maybe he's thinking of laughing, but not in a way that Viv's sure he'd get the joke.

Sammy picks that moment to offer John some of his banana split -- in his fist -- and John obliges without complaint, distracting the kid with exaggerated noises of epicurean pleasure while he thoroughly wipes the ice-cream from Sammy's grasping little hands. "So," John says, after he's swallowed down the squashed handful of banana and peanuts. "Where've you been?"

"This month?" Viv says, chasing a blueberry around his plate with a fork, watching it gather crumbs of pastry. "Down south. Mexico. But mainly keep to the coast. Heading back to San Francisco."

John's nodding, not taking his eyes off Viv as he draws Sammy onto his lap. Sammy slaps at the table with still-slightly-sticky hands, then shoves his fingers into his mouth. The whole thing is just… Surreal. John here, John with _kids_, John with his face tired and worn more than Viv remembers it, scar crossing the edge of his cheekbone paler, hair curling at the nape of his neck and making Viv's chest ache.

"It's been a while," he says, voice a little rougher than he intended, and he swallows hard.

"It has," John says, tone subdued and just… sad.

Viv doesn't realize how long they've been talking until Dean starts to sag, side of his face mashed against the arm of John's leather jacket, eyelids drooping. The sun's long set, the picture window they're sitting next to framing the broad indigo sky.

There's a companionable silence for a long moment as they both stare out at it, John's hand moving idly over Sammy's head, and then John says, "Hey. I got this photo, from '69. You wanna see it?"

Images flicker through Viv's head; he didn't keep any photos himself, or rather, lost them after the first few years back home, and the heartache of that's still fresh enough. "Sure," he says. "Sure."

"Great," Johnny's speaking softly, low, easy rumble. "We actually got a room at the hotel across the road. I'll put the boys to bed and get the picture for you."

He declines Viv's help, instead holds a boy against each shoulder, but doesn't turn down Viv's unspoken offer to take care of the bill. The night's fresh, faint wet- and sandy-scented, the road still aromatic from the heat of the day. Viv's boot heels click pleasantly against the tarmac, John moving silently.

The room's tiny, just one big bed that John settles the boys into, pulling off their shoes and tugging the coverlet over them. "Come on," he murmurs to Viv once he's done with them, mouth a low line and eyes shining in the half-light of the bedside lamp. "The journal's in the car."

It's not the first time he's seen John's Chevy; in contrast it barely looks aged. By this point, Viv's comfortable enough -- curling, pleasant warmth in his belly at John's presence that he feels confident to rest his hand on the roof of the car, slide it from windshield corner to back passenger door.

Then the world spins rapidly and Viv's got the cold metal of the door handle digging into this back, heart pounding and John's hands fisted in his shirt over his breast. He's frozen still, hands half-raised as if in surrender, in reassurance that he meant no harm, no offence and jesus, his heart's hammering away in panic and he lets the tension in his limbs go loose, automatically draining the indicators of threat from his body, even if he can't speak.

"I can't," John says, grits it out around the clench of his jaw, head ducked a little as he stares directly at Viv's chest, the taut fabric between his fists. "It's not--It's not--" He surges forward a little, and the movement presses more of his body against Viv's; Viv can feel the solid tension in his muscles, feel that Johnny's almost shaking. John's jaw works, and he still refuses to meet Viv's eyes. "It's not okay."

"What's not okay, Johnny?" Viv murmurs, lowering his hands a little, still keeping them at his sides. Trying to keep his tone neutral, though surely Johnny can feel how hard and fast Viv's heart's jerking against his knuckles.

John's eyes close, and his head dips further, then his whole body tilts forward and down a little and he presses his forehead to Viv's shoulder. "Nothing's okay," he says, voice rough with intensity. "Everything's not okay. Everything's fucked. It's all fucked up, Viv."

Viv brings his hands up, touching John finally, resting them flat on the backs of John's shoulders. The heat of his skin presses through the soft cotton of the flannel shirt, and John's forehead grinds against Viv's collarbone before he leans his whole body closer, hands loosening a little but pressed harder between his chest and Viv's, his ribcage expanding as he breathes deeply.

"Mary didn't die in an accident," John says, hot and grating through Viv's thin teeshirt. "Something killed her. Something evil. And I'm…" John stops, sucks in a break through his teeth. "I'm gonna find that sonovabitch that did it. Not gonna let it get my boys, too."

"Johnny," Viv says, swallows again and licks his lips, though it doesn't make his voice any smoother. "The cops, what about--"

John pulls back abruptly, but not very far; his grip tightens again and Viv's fingers find and hook onto the abrupt jut of John's shoulder blades, as if to secure purchase, stop him getting away. John makes eye contact, finally, and then doesn't break it. His breath huffs out in something that barely resembles a laugh, and Viv can smell bitterness of the coffee John had at the diner. "The cops can't do anything," John says. "They don't believe me. Think I'm crazy." He stops, tongue darting out to wet his lips. "Viv. She was _pinned to the ceiling._"

Viv kisses him then, urged on by the desperate need to stop John talking if nothing else. Because that's more terrifying than anything, and at the same time not unnerving at all; he can’t see a reason to _not_ believe John.

And shit, he's known far too fucking many folk come-home-gone-crazy but he and John were never gonna be like that, not he and Johnny, because as long as they stuck together, the crazy might try to come and find them but they would kill the fuck out of it every time, no matter what. As long as they stuck together.

John still kisses with his teeth. Makes a fight out of it like Viv hasn't been waving his white flag from the get-go, from cramped flights to their humid hooch to Californian diners at fucking sunset. Viv's fingers find the place John's hair curls into the nape of his neck and bury in there, grip fierce. John's still broad, broader than Viv, solid power in all his shapes and movements but this time the scrape of beard burns against the skin of Viv's face as John tilts his head, slides his hands up to rest on either side of Viv's neck, fingers at the edges of his jaw, holding him in place.

Viv makes a noise that's mostly lost in the wet sound of their mouths parting again. Johnny's huffing unevenly against Viv's skin, and things are somehow feeling less and less strange, back into familiar territory as Viv slits his eyes open to watch Johnny's face as Viv's fingers push through his hair, rubbing his scalp at the base of his skull.

The motel door behind John's still open just a gap, warm, dim light bleeding out. John's eyes slip half-closed, and Viv tightens the pressure just a little, grips John's chest with his elbows and moves, turns them around so John's back is to the car. John doesn't open his eyes, but his fingers flex lightly against Viv's jaw, then slide into Viv's hair as Viv drops down to his knees.

Viv's dick is already hard, throbbing insistently against the zipper of his fly when he looks up John's body from this new vantage point, sees its easy reclining angle, Johnny's shoulders tipped back against the top edge of the car and Johnny's legs already spread and planted wide so he could meet Viv's kiss at an equal height.

Viv swallows against the dryness in his mouth, presses a hand palm-flat against Johnny's groin to feel his dick swell in response. Viv can’t move his eyes away from the shifting shadows on John's bared throat when he swallows.

_It's okay_, he wants to say to John, almost; but it's not like he's ever said it before, not even when Johnny was baby-faced and masking his terror with braggadocio, let alone grief-weary and desperate. Because it's not okay. Johnny was right, everything else was always monumentally fucked up, but they were okay. They were the working definition of _okay_.

Maybe Viv's body remembers the shape, the taste of John's dick. His mouth is flooded with saliva, his face flushing with heat, somewhat illogically as it feels like all the blood in his body surges to his dick, painful now in his jeans. Both his hands are splayed against John's hips, the shift of bone under fine skin, the tightening of muscles in his ass. John's dick is hot on his tongue, scrape against the roof of his mouth, and Viv's spit dries on his own chin in the furnace-heat, tightening the skin, the sensation as decadent and filthy as John's come at the back of his throat.

Viv tries not to touch his dick as he unzips his own fly, struggling to his feet; he's waited this long for John's hands on him, he's not going to blow it -- so to speak -- now. Johnny's hands are hot and dry, and Viv drags one up by the wrist to spit in Johnny's palm before wrapping it back around his dick. Viv groans in appreciation when John starts jacking him, steady and firm and has to hide his face against John's neck when he catches the satisfied gleam of John's teeth in the faint light.

He eases away afterward, without John having to push him; taking with him a last lungful of the sweat-and-road dirt scent of John's skin. Their parting has always been marked by a sluice of endorphins, like that which follows a burst of violence. They lean side by side against the car, backs against metal, and then John rolls the other way and hauls the front door open with a loud creak.

"Here," he says, straightening again and flipping open a worn, pale leather journal in his hands. The front cover holds and small collection of medals and behind them, tucked into the fold of leather, a worn, black and white photograph.

Viv, with considerably more hair, plumper features, sunburn and a big fucking grin, posing almost-suggestively with his rifle. Johnny in the background, looking like a goddamn kid sneaking into the shot, like it was the biggest joke in the world to get his out-of-focus mug in Viv's candid portrait.

Viv's laughing softly before he knows it, the sound feeling in his chest like his heart's trying to fit itself up through his throat.

"Yeah," John murmurs. "That's what I thought."

Viv watches Johnny flip through half a book's worth of pages filled with harsh lines and scribbles before he gets to a page full of numbers and blank spaces; John holds the book steady in both hands while Viv writes down the phone number of the place he's going to be staying when he gets back into San Francisco.

"I'll be around, anyway," Viv says. Thinking, now that Johnny knows he's _there_, he won't be so hard to find any more. "Come by, next time you're heading west."

"Okay," John says, and flips the journal closed. "I'd better…" he says. "The boys."

"Okay," Viv says, steps away from the car. He turns his back and John hooks a finger into the back of his belt, lets Viv's own forward motion tug on it.

"Viv," John says, like he's going to say something else. His knuckles brush Viv's hip as his hand drops.

"Yeah," Viv says, and walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/52696.html


End file.
